Amazon has launched a new generative AI tool to improve customers' shopping experience. Called Rufus, it is designed to be an expert shopping assistant that can answer questions, make recommendations, and provide comparisons to guide customers through the online shopping journey.
According to Amazon, Rufus has been trained on its product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&A forums, and other online sources to gather relevant information. It can now engage in conversational dialogue with customers to assist them at various stages - from initial product research to specific questions about individual listings.
Customers using the Amazon mobile app will be able to type or speak questions into the search bar to interact with Rufus. It will appear at the bottom of the screen in a chat interface where users can ask follow-up inquiries and view suggested related questions.
The tool aims to simplify tasks like learning what factors to consider when buying certain items, comparing product categories, getting occasion-based gift ideas, and evaluating product details.
From broad research at the start of a shopping journey such as "what to consider when buying running shoes?" to comparisons such as "what are the differences between trail and road running shoes?" to more specific questions such as "are these durable?", Rufus meaningfully improves how easy it is for customers to find and discover the best products to meet their needs, integrated seamlessly into the same Amazon shopping experience they use regularly.
The rollout is currently in beta with select US customers who have installed the latest Amazon Shopping app on Android and iOS. The company plans to gradually expand the region's access to more mobile users in the coming weeks.
The launch marks Amazon's latest effort to incorporate advanced AI into its core shopping capabilities. Rufus contains generative language models to understand customer needs from natural language and provide personalized, contextual responses.
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